Dagens Nyheter (SE) Tomorrow, in a year is a performance that, with its exquisite scenic narrative technique and boldly exploratory music, shifts the positions of operatic art in a single leap…
Tomorrow, in a year is an ‘Einstein on the beach’ for a new age…
The Knife do not stick to the forms they have already mastered and their own internationally recognised sound. In Tomorrow, in a year they actually play Darwin himself, bringing into play the entire tradition of electronic music…

Information (DK) Tomorrow, in a year is probably the most complex performance that Hotel Pro Forma has ever created…Tomorrow, in a year is a Gesamtkunstwerk of hitherto unseen dimensions…
Everything has been perfected according to a Darwinian selective cynicism. Jesper Kongshaug’s lighting design is sheer paradise. And Maja Ravn’s costumes are once again telling offers of high waists and laced-in necks, so Vogue has plenty for its next number. Ralf Strøbech’s scenography is a wall with over-dimensioned bricks that turns beneath a projected sky with the aerial door to eternity…
The performers on the other hand are also quite perfect. The singer and actor Jonathan Johansson has a lyrical stillness about him and a natural rock energy on stage that both infects the actor Lærke Winther with the modern voice and the mezzo-soprano Kristina Wahlin, who pours out her dark lava notes with peace of mind in the midst of the stage’s virtual spin of laser beams and electro-surfaces.

Svenska Dagbladet (SE) Does it work? The answer is yes!
A performance where song, declamation, recorded music, dance, costume, light, laser and projection come together as an organic unity.

Helsingborg Dagblad (SE) Certain frequences in the performance make the chairs at the Royal Theatre vibrate…
Darwin’s world is brought to life in front of our eyes.

Politiken (DK) With mezzo-soprano Kristina Wahlin in blinding red, standing upright with a staff in her hand as though she were guarding something holy, with a voice that reaches the heavens. It’s beautiful!
Strøbech wanders, like the romanticist and scientist that he is, convincingly in Darwin’s footsteps and respectively in his shadow…
The collaboration with The Knife is pure genius.

Jyllandsposten (DK)Evolutionary teachings as brilliantly beautiful and musically suggestive electro-opera…
Brilliantly beautiful it is in long passages, when the three singers and six dancers move in odd formations, at one moment dancing, another singing in Ralf Richardt Strøbech’s scenographic installation, where green and red crashes powerfully together in the audiences head…
Eminently illuminated by Jesper Kongshaug.

Financial Times (UK)Lady Gaga decribes her Monster Ball Tour as “the first ever electro opera”, but Swedish sibling duo The Knife beat her to the punch…
That the surtitles helpfully spelt out phrases such as “prismatic feldspar” and pistiform concretions” added to the slightly Hitchhikers Guide vibe, which was not a bad thing…
Ultimately more Röcksopp than Ring Cycle, Tomorrow in a year was a highly evolved pop show, not a new species of opera, but the attempt at interbreeding was fascinating to watch.

Charles Darwin created one of the greatest scientific revolutions in the history of humanity. In 2009, it is 150 years since he published The Origin of Species, a book that altered people’s view of themselves and fundamentally changed the way in which the world is perceived. In this work he advanced a completely new conception of the interrelatedness of all things in nature and explained how species can and inevitably must change through time. “Things change when you want them to, but also when you don’t”.

One of Darwin’s most surprising conclusions was that if all species change through time, they must all stem from common ancestors, which means that man himself is an animal – something that then as now is very difficult to understand and accept. Darwin was not only deeply interested in the theory of evolution but also in human nature, and he searched for explanations for human behaviour in the developmental history of the species.

The performance
In his youth, Darwin circumnavigated the globe on board the ship The Beagle. This journey lasted five years. His letters give us a glimpse of the thoughts he had and observations he made during his travels. He was struck by the beauty and diversity of nature, and as a natural scientist he collected vast amounts of biological and geological material.

The first part of the performance has this journey as its starting point, partly as Darwin must have experienced it and partly as we ourselves can be overwhelmed by the beauty of nature and the powerful forces that constantly change everything. Sometimes these changes take place imperceptibly through time, as when water slowly files smooth pebbles out of rocks and changes the course of entire rivers. At other times the changes are sudden and overwhelming, as when a volcano violently erupts, or a tsunami changes the appearance of a whole piece of coastline.

Darwin looks at the world as a geologist, focusing on a vast time, that of the earth, and as a biologist, focusing on a short time, that of humanity.

The second part of the performance has Annie as its focal point. Darwin had ten children, two of whom died at birth, while his daughter Annie died when only ten years old. The songAnnie’s Box is cushioned between two dramatic sequences that examine how everything is made up of smaller parts. The human body contains millions of micro-organisms, cells, that have adapted themselves to a life within us. We are complex organisms with, quite literally, a rich inner life.

The third part of the performance has as its point of departure the publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin worked slowly and methodically. He developed the theory of evolution over a period of twenty years before writing the final work. He knew how complete a break with the prevalent world-view his thoughts would represent, and he wanted to have all the scientific evidence in place. In 1858, he received a letter from Alfred Wallace, a young researcher, who formulated the same thoughts about the origin of species as he had himself. This shook Darwin, but after having consulted friends and colleagues, he decided to publish his thoughts and theories as quickly as possible in the work that became The Origin of Species.

As an old man, Darwin retired from public life and devoted himself to writing his books. But the debate concerning the origin of species continued to rage about him.

Tomorrow, in a year shows the individual and the group as organisms, as constellations undergoing constant change. From Darwin’s own time, where people knew their place and function in the social arena to focusing on individual development and personal relations.

The fourth part of the performance takes the timeline up to the present day and shows a complex organism where it is a question of the interrelationship of all things, and of the relation of man to the world around him. The present has a fast-beating pulse, but evolution has its own slow, relentless driving force, with change as a basic condition.

Research and the acquisition of knowledge about the development of species continue in Darwin’s footsteps, and lead to new, sensational results. Hardly a day passes without a reference to Darwin within all aspects of society.

He has ensured himself a place in history, but first and foremost he was an example of the species Homo Sapiens. The performance has to do with Darwin, but it also has to do with all of us, with humanity as such, with humanity as a species.

Premiere on 2 September 2009 at Old Stage, Royal Danish Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark

The world seen through the eyes of Charles Darwin forms the basis for the performance Tomorrow, in a year. Theatre production company Hotel Pro Forma’s striking visuals blend with pop-duo The Knife’s ground-breaking music to create a new species of electro-opera.

An opera singer, a pop singer and an actor perform The Knife’s music and represent Darwin, time and nature on stage. Six dancers form the raw material of life. Together with the newest technology in light and sound, our image of the world as a place of incredible variation, similarity and unity is re-discovered.

The opera-genre provides the DNA, the framework of the performance. It calls for large scale, and it forms a space where form and expression dominate. The Swedish music group The Knife creates completely new compositions that challenge the conventional conception of opera music. The musical form is experimental and exploratory, and much of the sound heard was recorded while in the Amazon Jungle and in Iceland.

It is written for three singers of different backgrounds: popular music, classical opera and the performing arts. They are the narrators and the main characters in the performance. The singers tell about Darwin and they observe time and nature as Darwin.

The visual and conceptual universe is formed by Darwin’s thoughts, experiences and letters. The performance is divided into two parts – analogous to the development and publications of The Origin of Species.

The first part of the performance is exploratory. It concentrates on observing the underlying sequences and relationships between image, narrative, movement and music used in the performance. The second part is a synthesis of the material. A completed image and totality emerge, before the performance again mutates and passes into new forms, as happens over time with all things.

The opera presents an image of Darwin that above all reminds us that the world is a place of remarkable similarities and amazing diversity. That over time – tomorrow, in a year, or tomorrow, in a million years – change is inevitable.

Time forms our lives, gives our existence meaning and populates the globe. Generations, eons and millions of years create the new and eradicate existences. Nature selects, invites and dares everything without limitation